Tag Archives: look for jobs

If you kill time, you’ll murder your future. In your job search, are you comfortable doing the same thing over and over? If you are getting interviews, you are doing a lot right. If you are not getting interviews, you need to add something different.

Here is an example of people with potential dying early because they weren’t challenged. You won’t die from boredom, but I bet you can learn new skills and look for jobs in a new way.

Down Syndrome vs down syndrome part 3

Up until the 1980’s it was common to put babies with Down Syndrome into asylums. They never learned to read, talk, be toilet trained or do much of anything. They seemed to be content. They would sit in the corner and rock or wiggle their fingers in front of their eyes. Most died before the age of 21.

The singing cowboy Roy Rogers and his wife Dale Evans had a baby with Down Syndrome, which they refused to put in an asylum. Dale Evans wrote a book about the child’s two years of life. She began a revolution. Most kids with Down Syndrome, like my daughter Merrilee, now learn to read to a fifth grade level, are toilet trained, and live to be at least 50.

Merrilee would sit in a corner and rock or wiggle her fingers in front of her face if she didn’t have something more interesting to do. We have to purposely work at it. We have to provide something better than rocking in the corner. Are you doing the same for yourself?

Job seekers with down syndrome often end up doing something equivalent to rocking in a corner. They find an essentially useless, brainless task and concentrate on it. They don’t want to think. They just want to be doing SOMETHING. Or they find a task that looks like it should be useful, but is producing absolutely nothing, and they do that.

Do you keep submitting the same resume online to hundreds of jobs with no result? Do you mail a resume to all the ads in the paper without getting an interview? Do you scan websites for jobs and never find one? Do you just watch TV because it is less painful than trying to get a job?

You really do have amazing potential. Sometimes discovering your talents is painful and difficult. Worse, trying to get paid for those talents the first time, before you have “experience”, can take the wind right out of your sails.

Try something new. Make a completely different resume and submit it a few places. Call a few companies and ask for the person who would be your new supervisor. Do some serious networking by having friends critique your resume for you. Study interviewing skills at the library. Read, “How To Win Friends and Influence People” by Dale Carnegie. Read “Acres of Diamonds” by Russell Conwell (Google for it)

When I was a child I tried fishing in the water puddle in front of our house. When the sun dried it up I could see there were no fish there.

At college I saw a video of a man fishing in one of the larger fountains there. When people asked how the fishing was, he pulled up a nice string of large trout. That made for interesting conversations, but no one believed him. They could see there were no trout in that clear fountain water.

On a Scout outing John and I were lying on a creek bank and looking down into the water. We could see 3 nice trout in the tree roots. When a fisherman came by we asked how he was doing. Only one fish so far. John told the man to cast his lure at the tree root. In a dozen casts the man caught all three fish.

To catch fish you have to cast your lure where the fish are.

This applies to new jobs and promotions

A recruiter can be that kid lying on the bank of the creek looking into the water. He says “Cast your resume over here and you’ll get a job.” He knows where the jobs are.

Ask your friends and acquaintances who is hiring. They may have a good idea where to go. Look at the financial news stories and find out what industries are “going public” in the stock market. Ask what companies are growing the fastest and look for a job in that industry.

Your mentor at work will tell you, “Volunteer for that project. It has great visibility. Avoid Jill Montoya, she’s poison.” The mentor knows where the rewards and pitfalls are hidden.

Always be looking to the future. Where are the jobs being created? What do you need to learn to be in a high demand field?

Fish where the fish are. You’ll have better luck.

Something to do today

Ask the people you respect most in your profession where the jobs are and where the industry is going.